My 'Duh' Moment

This past weekend, my wife was super cool. She hired a babysitter for Saturday morning so that the missus and I could take 3 hours and go for a hike in the mountains. We had an amazing time. In the sun, it was T-shirt-warm despite the snow on the ground. We tried out a new trail that was all but empty for our entire ramble through the woods. It was the perfect example of living the life, a state of being which I’ve been talking about since I began this blog in March. For those of you catching up: Peak Fitness isn’t about training for multi-pitch climbs or 3-week thru hikes. Nope, this blog is about my quest to simply stay healthy and fit enough to enjoy myself in the mountains, on my bikes, and with my family.

So what’s the “duh” moment in this story? Well, it has to do with the fact that this very pleasant hike with my wife was a piece of cake. In fact it was so easy that I started scheming about when and how I could fit in a 10k run later in the afternoon . You see, I didn’t think I’d gotten any exercise from walking for over two hours up and down 1,200 vertical feet of National Forest trail. At altitude.

Then it hit me while I was weighing the possible negative effects of eating a cinammon bagel slathered with strawberry cream cheese vs. a piece of whole wheat toast and peanut butter (the toast being a better choice if I was going to go running later). “You idiot,” I thought to myself. “The whole reason that you go for runs during lunch and wake up at 5 A.M. to do your 20-minutes of strength training is so that those times that you DO head into the mountains feel like cake. Give yourself a break and start enjoying what you’re fit enough to do.”

And with that, I shut down the nagging voice inside my head saying, “Run, run, RUN!” and had the bagel. And the rest of my son’s which he didn’t eat.

Living the life is good. Especially when you slow down and live it.